Ministers secure date for flagship British trade promotion summit

Ministers have finalised a date for the government’s second Global Investment Summit (GIS) as they seek to bolster Britain’s claim to be a leading global magnet for overseas capital.

Sky News has learnt that the day-long conference will take place on November 27, three days before the COP28 climate change summit gets underway in Dubai.

Sources said invitations had begun being issued to business leaders from around the world in recent days.

The GIS was last held in October 2021 at London’s Science Museum, with this year’s event being staged at a separate historic location in the capital.

The government said in February that the summit would take place before the end of October, although diary clashes are said to have made that impossible.

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, and Jamie Dimon, chairman and CEO of JP Morgan Chase, were among those who attended the 2021 event.

Boris Johnson, the then prime minister, hailed £9.7bn of foreign direct investment deals announced that day, which the government said would be responsible for creating 30,000 British jobs.

In February, the government said this year’s GIS would be attended by more than 200 bosses of multinational companies and investment corporations.

“The next Global Investment Summit is an opportunity to demonstrate what we can do as a nation, delivering on our ambition to be the a world-leading destination for international finance and investment,” Rishi Sunak, the prime minister said.

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Insiders at the Department for Business and Trade (DBT) said that Kemi Badenoch, its secretary of state, had made clear her priority to make the UK the leading investment destination in Europe.

They confirmed that this year’s event would highlight British successes in areas including life sciences, deep tech, nuclear fusion and small modular reactors.

It would also, they added, seek to demonstrate that capital investment in Britain was being unlocked by post-Brexit financial liberalisation measures included in the ‘Edinburgh reforms’ outlined by the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, earlier this year.

“Events like this will help deliver this and show the world’s biggest investors just what a strong investment prospect the UK can offer,” Ms Badenoch said in February.

“Overseas investment has already led to 85,000 new jobs in 2021/22 alone, and I want to us to go further, driving growth and putting more money in the pockets of hardworking Brits.”

Preparations for the event come at a delicate time for perceptions of the UK as an inward investment destination, with car manufacturers including the Vauxhall-owner Stellantis having recently warned of potential factory closures because of post-Brexit rules.

Sir James Dyson, founder of the eponymous electrical goods brand, has been an outspoken critic of government policy, warning that the ambition of becoming a science and technology superpower had been reduced “to a political slogan”.

The DBT declined to comment on the timing of the summit.

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